Alice Cooper in 4 Easy Steps

 

 

Step 1: basic design lines.

Using Manga Studio Ex, I start on a fresh layer, I set the pencil tool to something big and thick and just splash away at a basic figure. I pay attention to movement - see how the spine is jutting all over the place? That's something I like. This has pretty bad proportions... do I fix them? Well no, but, YOU SHOULD. This is the stage to erase a lot and scribble a lot without any penalties. 

 

Step 2: Pencil in details.

On a second layer I use a smaller pencil brush and sloppily draw in some details. This part doesn't have to be neat unless you're a twitchy inker. I sometimes scribble in some solid shadows, but basically this is just refining my idea before I get down to specifics.

 

Step 3: Inks

With a little more patience and precision I throw down some inks. I'm not being terribly cautious here because this drawing was more for a laugh than anything. Manga Studio Ex is the best inking program I have ever used. Use a small brush for fine details, use a thick brush for shading, but otherwise the program is so intuitive it practically inks for you. 

 

Step 4: Colours

I guess I skipped Step 3.5: Learn to colour :P. I'm a shit, I know. But while it's easy to save my steps when drawing, it's a bitch to save my steps while colouring. I'm a lazy colourist anyway, I slop everyhting onto the page and then blend using the watercolour brush in Sai. I only use one layer. I basically paint digitally the way I would with oils, background first, then build it up. 

So Viola! Your very own Alice. Get off my lawn and try it yourself, you damn kids.

Christmas who?

A Dangermoth page in progress... I don't think I've ever shown pages in progress. I tend to have a scorched earth policy when it comes to my work. If the sketch ain't already shitty quality, then it gets deleted when I finish my inks and move on to colours. And then, my old habit was to have a single layer file only, so my inks got destroyed too. And to add insult to injury, I saved low res. 

When I was asked to show my work for an interview I was totally screwed. I feverishly scavenged up some low-qual inks and sat there, sweating my biggest shit-eating grin, hoping they didn't notice that I completely missed the point of the expose interview. I scraped into that by virtue of my shapely ass, people. The interview went from 'DARING YOUNG COMIC ARTIST' to 'OMFG COSPLAY GUUUUURRRRL'. I severely doubt they even noticed the inks I used were sloppily slapped over a Daz3D model >_>. 

Welcome to the world of professional illustration! If there are titties involved anywhere in the process, expect the 'professional' side to slip. 

 

TRAINING MONTAGE

 

See? I even managed to delete the sketches for panel 2 and 4 before I remembered I was documenting my process. Maybe I'm sketch racist. I mean, I love seeing everyone elses sketches, but my own? Wuuut no.

 

ORIGINAL TOTES

 

Revisiting a comic character I created in, oh... 99? Holy shit, that was 11 years ago.  Christmas Raven was my rockstar girl character. I used to be the biggest rock n roll retard fangirl ever to hide herself away from the Queensland sunshine. Christmas Raven. Christmas, because my name means Christmas (lol original), and Raven - NO, NOT actually because it's all sweet gothic cool, but because of a totally rubbish horror movie from the 80's called 'Monster Dog'. Yes, Alice Cooper's first foray into the field of acting wasn't so much spectacular as it was a steaming pile of hepatitis ridden werewolf shit. Anyways, he was a werewolf rockstar called Vincent Raven (Vincent being Alice's birth name). Christmas was (and get your pad and pen ready to tick off the cliches) a fallen angel with purple hair and red eyes, who wore all black, with studs and leather, and ran a rock n roll carnival of the damned. Please note: Alice Cooper ran a theatre of the damned in exactly the same way.

She seduces and controls a teenage boy called Vincent (more name stealing) who is a giant emo faggot if you EVER did see one. Also, I'd trace pictures of Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion and just add long black hair to illustrate him. Yes, I was THAT bad. Say hello to the consequences of only using anime for reference material. 

RARE SURVIVING ARTWORK:

AHHH IT BURNS

Annnnd there's Alice Cooper lyrics quoted on it. Pretty much the whole thing is was 'anime Alice Cooper with tits'.

 

MMM TWI'LEKS

Change of pace: TWI'LEKS. Oola and Lyn Me from Return of the Jedi .

Don't forget to feed my fish at the top of the page!

A little controversy

So there's this thing called 'Mary Sues'. I'm sure you've all heard of them. Some people hate them, others love them. I generally love them!

Few things can spawn a massive flame war the size of which would make a certain hun blush, but a Mary Sue is one of those things. I've seen rational, lovely ladies turn into gnashing banshees when it comes to pointing out the slightest magical girl plot discrepancy in a fanfic. And god help the authors who then draw their creations - you are going to get flamed. You're going to get so much 'constructive criticism' that your uterus will shrivel into a prune at the thought of you being able to create anything ever again.

The most famous Disney sue has to be Marina Seadrift (the creation of Andrea Avrett). I won't go into too many details, as I'm actually a fan of Marina's journies, but let's lay a veil of piety on 'Faithful Hearts', or 'Faith of the Heart' as it's now called. You could call it heresy (others have, and threated to burn down DeviantArt over it), but to me it's harmless fun.Using our artistic talents to explore our fantasies is like, rule 1 or 'hey i should try this drawing thing'.

I'd be all for an international Mary Sue day, where we could all turn into fabulously beautiful adventuresses who fall in love with Prince Beasty McPirate Angel Demon.

For now, he's a sketch:

Jasmine and Belle

I think Belle and Ariel share the top spot in regards to 'favouritist Disney princess evar'. While I love Belle's appearence, her movie... ehh... I just always feel uncomfy watching her fall in love with a giant abusive asshole. Who is awesome, granted. And sure, he has a huge.. library. And he looks like Worf. I love Worf. I would have been pissed at the Beast once he transformed back to human form considering how adorably Worfish he was. 

I love the anatomy of Belle's legs so much that I didn't have the heart to cover it up with her skirt.... so I basically tore the skirt off. I think the dozens of Ballets I've seen have influenced my choice in leg curviture.

Sketched in Sai, inked in MangaStudioEx then coloured in Sai.

Welcome to Pulp Candy, another art blog featuring the ladiez!

My name is Noelle and I'm a femme-aholic. I love drawing women. Big ones, small ones, angry ones, fluffy ones, royal ones, beggar ones, modest ones, open ones... I love the female form. Hell, as an artist, I just love women. 

 Girls, Girls, Girls.

I sketch a lot. Like a lot lot. I sketch so much I have a permenant mound of scarred skin on my pinky finger where skin meets paper. This blog is the tissue by which to catch my gratuitous output (and hello, our first masturbation joke!). 

I love girls with guns, girls with swords, cabaret stars, burlesque dancers, bounty hunter babes, feline fatales, catgirls IN SPACE, Disney princesses, waifu, murderous schoolgirls, killer dames, gypsies, ninjettes, rock divas, comic chicas, avenging angels... oh lawdy, you name a pulp cliche and I'll say 'I LOVE it'. 


I'm a published comic book artist (STRANGE CASE) and I'm currently studying a double degree in science of psychology/criminology and criminal justice. I'm an avid researcher of the darkside of humanity, but my main focus in life is beauty. I just happen to find quite a few scary things beautiful. 

So sit back, get ready to right click, and enjoy some delicious calorie free PULP CANDY.